


Partners

by CatNerdsOut



Series: Wanderer [3]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, IN SPACE, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Redemption, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26380717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatNerdsOut/pseuds/CatNerdsOut
Summary: And what about you?  He wondered.  Do you trust me?Much like the ship, everything was still too fragile.  They couldn’t withstand the onslaught of questions. Not as they were.It was a long path from what they were to what he hoped they’d be.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Yon-Rogg
Series: Wanderer [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901671
Comments: 18
Kudos: 48





	Partners

**Author's Note:**

> This alternates between Carol and Yon-Rogg a bit. The best hint is if Carol is referred to as Carol or Vers. This is set roughly around 2000.
> 
> There was no good place for a chapter break so... it’s all here.

It was disorienting to be back on a Kree ship after so long outside of the Empire’s boarders.For years the best ship was one that was available, headed away from Hala, with a crew the less likely to swindle him than on average.Even stranger was to be back on a cruiser retrofitted into science lab then altered again for civilian transport.

Vers launched into a dizzying tour of the ship that began as soon as he stepped off the shuttle.His mind swam trying to keep each location sketched on the mental map that was forming.Hydroponics.Observation deck.Crew quarters.Maintenance.

Mar-Vell’s cruiser was aging before she defected almost two decades prior and was long past needed upgrades.Compounding the problem was additional years marooned in orbit after her death - her _execution_ his mind unhelpfully reminded him - and the crew had spent the intervening years putting out fires, both real and figurative.The vessel managed to remain space worthy but only just, like a ripped fabric stitched and reinforced then torn again.Most of the ships components were long past the need for replacement.One of his responsibilities would be training some of the Skrull in maintenance of the ship Vers had said.She also mentioned needing another to help pilot the ship.It seemed they were short-handed everywhere.

The thought encouraged.He was needed.He had a task, a mission to achieve.He had wandered the stars without direction or purpose, not allowing himself to mourn its absence.And he had found Vers.

Following the hurried tour, she shoved several small parcels into his arms.

“What is this?”His brow furrowed as his eyes darted between her face and the wrapped packages in his arms.

While many cultures valued children, for a group that had been so hunted, Skrull children were considered especially precious, each one a unique hope for a future free of oppression.Vers explained the gifts were for him to give the children.If the children trusted him, their parents would eventually follow.

 _And what about you?_ He wondered. _Do you trust me?_

Much like the ship, everything was still too fragile.They couldn’t withstand the onslaught of questions. Not as they were.

It was a long path from what they were to what he hoped they’d be.

Yon-Rogg took the cabin seven doors away from hers and Carol wondered after that particular selection until she walked the distance.It matched the number of steps from their doors on Hala.The thought made her cheeks flush.He maintained a respectful distance but made no secret of his regard or his hopes.He watched her from across a room, his eyes tracing her face.He was comfortable in his feelings, she realized.He made no attempt to conceal or even dilute the force of them.They simply existed as bright as stars.How long, she wondered, had his admiration been fixed?Had it been one year or ten?

She remembered how she used to long for his approval like air and glow when he smiled at her.She struggled to fit these contrary feelings together.The betrayal tainted everything, making the edges rough and disjointed.She didn’t know how to move past it.She didn’t know if she wanted to.

It was easier to stay away.

His first shifts on the bridge were with Talos.Yon-Rogg wondered if was to protect him from the other Skrulls or the general’s own twisted sense of humor to needle the Kree for his own enjoyment.Eventually he and Vers would be forced on the bridge together.There were simply too few trained pilots for them to not be paired during a shift eventually.But despite how much as he anticipated the next inevitable encounter, each new rota came out and they were never scheduled together.She had begun avoiding him.It stung.

Still Vers was present in her own unique way.She drifted along the periphery, just out of reach if not out of view. But, when he would turn to face her head on she began retreating, rushing away.Perhaps she was assessing how much of his old Starforce habits remained, searching for how much of him had changed as she watched his interactions with the maintenance techs. Perhaps she was working out how she felt with him thrown back within her sphere.

Whenever they neared a settlement she would become terse, irritable to nearly everyone, not just him.She barely spoke to him unless it was to antagonize him, but then her words were cutting and harsh and lacked her typical teasing mischief.

“She’s worried you’ll disappear the first chance you get,” Talos said during a shared piloting shift.

“She told you that?”

Talos shook his head.“She didn’t need to.Soren gets the same way before I leave on a mission.”

Yon-Rogg bristled.“Vers knows I am perfectly capable of defending myself.”

“It’s not that,” the Skrull argued.“I think she worries you won’t come back.”

“I have no where else to go,” he shrugged.

Talos drew his brow down, his eyes stern.“Maybe don’t tell her that.”

He snorted back.“Of course I wouldn’t.”He might have been a fool, but he wasn’t an idiot.

“Neither of you really thought what it would mean to be stuck on a ship together.”

Yon-Rogg turned the statement over in his mind.Since he had been imprisoned on C-53 he thought of little else but her showing up to drag him off-world.Sometimes she arrived blazing with fury and vengeance.Other times she bestowed forgiveness on her repentant commander.The reality was somewhere between the two.He caught her staring at him like she feared he might vanish.Other times she was so irate she could barely look at him.The oscillation between two extremes was jarring.Still...

“I’d rather be stuck on a ship with her, even as things are now, than anywhere else.”

Talos pointed into the air as his confession floated away. “ _That_ is what you tell her.When she’ll actually talk to you, I mean.”

Yon-Rogg considered this.“Offering advice to a Kree.You’re not a very good Skrull, Talos.”

“Well last I heard, you’re not a very good Kree either.”

Long ago he had killed this man’s friend and stolen his hope of a home.How many years had this Skrull lost with family because of his actions?How many comrades and friends had he lost?If Yon-Rogg had listened first rather than shooting at Mar-Vell, what would their lives looked like now?

Maybe he would be on this ship either way.

A thousand plastic pieces littered the workbench surrounding a half formed grey lump.Magnifying glasses perched on the end of Yon-Rogg’s nose.

“You’re putting together a model spaceship?” Vers asked.

“Well, it seems one of these gifts you returned with came with too many small parts so one of the children requested that I assemble it.”

“What did I even get?”Vers grabbed the box and flipped it over.“Star Wars, nice.I heard the new one sucked, by the way.”

“I have no idea what that means” he retorted.

“Did you even attempt to watch TV when you were down on my planet?”

“Attempted?Yes,” he grabbed a small container of adhesive.“It was dry and uninspired.”

“You’re dry and uninspired,” she spat back, her voice irritated and tight.

“Excuse me?” He removed his glasses and swiveled his stool to face her.He was a mix of offended archness.“Vers-“

“Danvers,” she corrected.

“Dan-Vers, I don’t understand what you want from me.”

She sighed.She shrugged.“I don’t either,” at length she admitted.

“Why bring me with you at all?”He feared she would say it had been a mistake, an impulse she now regretted.He didn’t want to leave but he had wondered since they boarded the ship with her actions.His mind abused him for his lack of control and frustrated outburst, but a louder part said it was only natural based on her actions.

That and the fact that she held the distinction of being the only one to rattle his calm facade.

And Vers rarely backed down from a challenge.

“Why visit C-53 without me?We usually tour there at the same time so we can coordinate the explosions,” the joke fell flat an her attempt at a humorous tone came out more biting, more bitter.

He watched her through calculating eyes.Someone needed to remain calm if only to prevent further erosion of their tentative progress.“I see what you’re trying here.”

“Is it working?”

“Not really.”

“I don’t,” she hesitated before starting again, “I don’t really remember how to act around you.Especially now.”

“It’s understandable,” he nodded.

“I spent a long time being angry at you.”

She confessed it like it was something shameful and he wanted to rush to ease any lingering guilt she carried.But the words died in his throat.It was not his place to dictate how she processed this change.It wasn’t even his place to offer advice or consolation.Not anymore, and maybe never again.

She walked away and the distance had never seemed so great.He sighed.There was nothing he could do but wait.And hope.

Sometimes he feared that he had idealized her in their time apart, but there was no disappointment with her.He would wait and if he waited forever it was better to be in her presence than somewhere else.He chided himself with a soft tut.Time and distance had made him foolish.And nothing could equal his foolishness than when Vers was concerned.

During night cycles when sleep remained illusive, Carol imaged the faint thud of footfalls in the corridors.She rolled over and buried her head beneath a pillow, the intermittent beats almost matched an old jody and she was lulled back to sleep thinking of the words.

The next night she opened her door to find Yon-Rogg making a circuit through their deck.His eyes were ringed in red; it never occurred to her that dreams kept him awake too.He nodded as he passed, but kept his pace, disappearing around the corridor.

The third night she laid awake in bed trying to listen for his door to hiss open.She darted into the hall at the first noise, only to run into another one of the crew.On the second attempt, she caught her quarry and invited him to spar, the offer no less awkward and stumbling than the acceptance.

Sparring was familiar.The forms returned to them both easily.It was a safe bedrock upon which they could work to build their new normal.But there was nothing normal about things now.She had never left the sparring mat so quivering with want on Hala, and she never remembered him leaning forward as his gaze flicked to her mouth before either.They grappled more than they punched now.Sometimes when they sparred one would pin the other.If there was hesitation, the seconds ticking away _one... two... three..._ as they searched the other’s eyes for some unnamed thing before the victor raised themselves up, surely that was just their imaginations.

He struggled with her name.To everyone else aboard she was Carol, but he had known her as Vers too long to make that change easily.Once in the initial weeks after leaving Earth he attempted to use her Terran name.They both winced.Danvers was a compromise.But it always came out Dan-Vers, he lingered on the ending.The result was a name that sounded both more formal and more foreign to them both.

One evening cycle they sat across from each other in the mess hall.Carol flipped through an Earth magazine, the binding was failing and pages bent, evidence of being read and reread countless times.Between them a tower of datapads were stacked precariously.Yon-Rogg grabbed the top pad absently and the rest toppled over.One slid to the edge of the table near her.

“Dan-Vers, would you grab that?”

She kept her eyes on her pamphlet, but with one hand slid the data pad across to him.

Yon-Rogg glanced over at her, hearing her quiet inhale to speak and then nothing.A silent debate raged as she worried her lip.He returned his attention to the maintenance logs.

Her eyes peaked over the top of her magazine.Words tumbled out in a rush.“Dan-Vers is too weird when it’s just us.”

He paused.“Would you prefer Carol?”

The magazine dropped from her hands.She looked shocked, almost horrified and shook her head.“From you, that’s even weirder.”A moment passed, but it felt longer, like the second before takeoff waiting for the engines to engage and momentum to hit.“Just Vers is fine.”

He searched her face.“Are you sure?”

She shrugged and reached for her reading.“I guess I can’t get used to you calling me anything else.”

His voice dropped to a low whisper and she had to lean forward to hear.“Just Yon is fine too.”

She smiled as though she had just received something precious.

“Your form is sloppy,” her face appeared neutral but there was no mistaking the way her eyes glittered and she pushed him away.She enjoyed this.

“Forgive me if the past few years have not provided ample opportunity to perfect my technique,” he retreated and reset his stance.“Most of the time any fighting was business.I was fighting for my life half the time.”

“And what is this? Business or pleasure?”She advanced on him.

“There was no one nearly as pleasant to spar with,” he trapped her arm behind her.“And I can still beat you.”

In a flash she broke free and swept his legs out from under him.He landed on the mat with a dull thud.

She leaned over him, grinning madly.“Or maybe I was just going easy on you.”

They stood closer than before in the moments after sparring, breath mingling in the in the space between.Every day the distance seemed to shrink.It was only natural, Carol justified.Two lost spacefarers on a stolen ship, his blood in her veins, years of fighting together then against then towards.They had more in common with each other than any of the rest.Right?

At first she thought it was a game, some silent challenge where they stared into each other’s souls to see who would break away first.But there was nothing teasing in his eyes.What she saw there burned.

She knew how he felt.It was no secret.He knew what she felt, didn’t he?

Later she wondered if he was waiting for her to make the choice.

They spent more time together, seeking each other out and orbiting around each other in their off-hours.The rest of the residents and crew grew used to referring to them as a unit: Carol and her Kree.

It should have bothered her, at least a bit.But they had been continually in each other’s company even before this big unnamed thing blossomed between them.They were even more in each other’s company on Mar-Vell’s ship than on Hala.Carol checked herself; they were simply used to each other.But she knew they both demonstrated preference rather than habit in constantly seeking out each other.She allowed herself some satisfaction that over the years _Yon-Rogg and his protege_ had morphed into _Carol and her Kree_.

On night shifts when one of them was scheduled on the bridge, the other usually brought reading material and curled up in an adjacent chair.She watched him, his head leaned back against the chair and eyes closed as he dozed lightly, datapads lay scattered at his feet.

Yon-Rogg had always pushed himself.It was what allowed a pink Kree to advanced so far above many of his blue counterparts.But he constantly fluttered between projects with a restlessness she could not recall from before.Even his off-hours were consumed with tinkering on replacement parts or reviewing logs.

No rest for the wicked, Maria would say.

She understood, probably better than most.They were both working themselves into exhaustion.They both still had nightmares.They were both still running from things in their past.

During night shifts the autopilot was activated.No sense in pressuring the lone soul assigned to the bridge with calculating their trajectory and keeping an eye out for hostile ships.Carol verified their heading before she slipped out of her chair and padded over to Yon-Rogg.

In sleep there was no mask, no sarcastic smirk to hide behind.What would happen if she ran her fingers through his hair, dragged her nails against his scalp, cradled his cheek, kissed him?She chewed her lip considering.Fingertips experimentally touched his hair.She held her breath and glanced at his face.Golden eyes stared back.

“You fell asleep,” was all she could whisper.

He simply stared in response, neither speaking nor moving as she stood next to him.

What was she waiting for, she wondered as she returned to her seat in the silence.

Maria was no help.In rare moments of peace when the ship’s clock would align with Earth’s central time zone enough to permit a call, the conversation would quickly launch towards subjects Carol would just as soon avoid.

“How’s the boyfriend?”

Carol groaned and bit out a curse.

“Girl, you cannot tell me you rescued him from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility only to get cold feet now.”

“That wasn’t why I got him out.”

Maria hummed, doubt clear.“Do you think he’s waiting the requisite ten years?”She beamed at her own joke.

“Things are...” she hesitated before settling on “fine.”Were they?They were certainly different.Carol didn’t know how to articulate to another how she felt this weight in her chest when she looked at him.How she felt like she was constantly about to trip and fall around him and how the idea of _them_ didn’t bother her as much as it once had.

They were traveling through the Crimson Shoal Nebula when one of the engines began to malfunction.Rather than risk exacerbating a minor problem by forcing the ship along, they hid in the vast darkness of space, cloaked and safe in the void between systems where no one would look.Talos and Yon-Rogg decided the latter would take a shuttle to the nearest station to obtain the repair parts.Carol questioned the former’s judgement. 

“You’re sending him _alone_?”

“He knows what we need and where to get it.He doesn’t need a chaperone.He’ll be gone five days, a week tops,” Talos responded but she looked unconvinced by his nonchalance.“If it bothers you so much, go with him.”

Carol crossed her arms. “Maybe I will.”

“No powers, if you please,” Talos instructed.“No uniform.No need to cause a scene.No one needs to know you’re here or they’ll renew the search for Skrulls in this sector.”He ticked off requirements like she had never been on a covert mission before.

She said nothing to Yon-Rogg as she followed him into the shuttle, a dilapidated tin can littered with dents and scrapes, deliberately in some instances so as to appear as the least appealing option for would-be thieves.Carol took the co-pilot’s chair, but she could feel his eyes slide over her and could almost taste that smug grin.

“Were you afraid I wouldn’t come back?” He teased.

“Just wanted to make sure you don’t end up in a holding cell again,” she ignored his eyes.

“Ah,” he busied himself with pre-flight checks.“Well, it all worked out last time.”

Carol grumbled and barely spoke another word to him, but his lips curled into a light smile that remained the entire way to the station.

When they stepped off the shuttle onto Polus Orbital Station he gestured for her to follow him.He had been here before she realized as he navigated the docking bays.She must have been walking too slowly because he grabbed her hand and tugged her after him through crowds and angled corridors.

She was still focused on their linked hands and the faint tingling where his skin pressed against hers when he stopped in front of a modest residence and rapped a deliberate pattern of knocks on the door.

A Xandarian man opened the door, letting out a loud laugh and wrapping his arms around Yon-Rogg.He then turned to Carol, embracing her as well before pulling them both inside to greet his wife and child.Their Xandarian forms melted away and they greeted the pair with their true faces.

“Is this your Vers?” The woman asked and Yon-Rogg froze.

“Everyone else calls me Carol,” she answered.“But yes, I’m his Vers.”She felt a bit reserved, but her smile remained calm and polite, even as she heard his breath hitch next to her.

The more she was around him, the more Carol wondered if the Kree custom of emotional suppression was in their very nature or merely a cultural practice they expected from all in society.She had seen him frustrated, anxious, excited.He reminded her of a pressure cooker, whatever emotion welled up in him but rather than an explosion, a small trickle of steam escaped.Just enough.That particular coping strategy was nothing new.He was that way even on Hala.

Or maybe he simply was not a very good Kree.He joked more frequently about that as time passed.It had become a shield of a sorts.A way to protect himself from his own disappointment in himself and his people by painting it all as his own defect.

She watched him more, learned to read the subtle pulse in his temple when his jaw clenched.Small movements and ticks bloomed into colors that helped her sketch out his emotions.He felt, well, all of it she realized.It was the overt expression that the Kree tried to stifle rather than the current that ran beneath.

Sometimes she caught him watching her and she’d tilt her head the way he used to do for her, a silent invitation to join her.His mouth would quirk slightly, a tiny private smile.But to her it seemed as though his entire face lit from her attention.

Once Talos teased her that all they needed was to get knife and a pitcher of oil and stand in front of a computer to make it official.Yon-Rogg looked incensed and stalked off while Carol gaped.Make what official?Talos doubled over with laughter until the dawning realization struck him silent.Carol had no idea about Kree blood bonds.He stumbled over apologies but Carol was already stomping away, incandescent with rage, fingers sparkling, hair crackling with static.Another omission.Another lie.Another betrayal. 

Later she cornered him.Yon-Rogg acted hurt, like a wounded animal hiding from the world.It only infuriated her more.She was the one forced into something against her will.She accused.He denied.

“Kree blood has to be offered _and_ accepted.You couldn’t do that unconscious from a medical cot,” he snarled.

So there was no bond.Beyond a lifesaving intervention and completely altering her DNA, the transfusion did nothing to link her to another.They were no more connected than by the threads of shared experiences.Carol waited for the rush of relief that didn’t come.Did she really long for him as a constant presence by her side?The thought was unsettling.

“But what does it do?”She pressed.

“Do?A Kree blood bond doesn’t _do_ anything, Vers.”

She charged on, forcing the conversation further despite his attempt to end the exchange.It wouldn’t be something he guarded so fiercely if it didn’t do something, she reasoned.He had revealed every other hallowed tradition to her, but on this he remained firm and would say no more.She could almost remember the tone in his voice when he lectured her years ago on the sacred and personal nature of the Kree traditions.He chastised her, asking if she would allow him one custom, one thing from his previous life that she wouldn’t force him to pick apart and dissect.

“I’m sorry,” she offered.“I just thought-”

“It’s personal, Vers.It’s not even discussed casually.”He said it like the subject was closed.That tone still rankled, still goaded a retaliation.

“Maybe we should just slice open our palms and press them together like on Earth,” she quipped.

His voice had a sharp, threatening edge and his eyes were molten pools.“Don’t joke about that.”

She looked away before she drowned.

She wondered what would finally be the catalyst, when they would stop orbiting each other and crash together.She toyed with different scenarios in her mind.Something suitably dramatic to ignite the kindling and set them both ablaze.He was waiting for her she had long since realized.Waiting for her to reach the same point he had been at for ages, hovering on the edge of the event horizon ready to surrender to gravity’s pull.

In the end it just was.The next breath of air.The next moment.A slow speed collision neither tried to pull back from.It was a day cycle like any other traveling between the stars in an aging ship.They sparred like on any other day.After she landed on the mat she looked up to see him standing over her, hand outstretched.When she rose to her feet she looked up at him, hands still locked together.Nothing was different, but everything was different.

She could tug at his hand and pull him close.She could drop his hand and reset for another round.She could push him away and let the moment end.Instead she stepped closer.Toes touching, hands caged between them, and oh God this was really happening Carol thought in a rush.Yon-Rogg just stared at her, molten gold and watching, waiting.Waiting to back away from the edge, waiting to launch over it, waiting for... whatever.

She reached her hand up to curl around the back of his neck and pulled him towards her.Time stopped and they hovered pressed against each other with still lips.Her heart hammered faster than when they had been trading blows and she counted the seconds _one... two... three..._ The irony complete now as she waited for him to do something... anything.

Then something in him shattered and the dam broke and suddenly, oh, they were suddenly so very much closer than a moment before.Their hands broke apart and caressed and pulled at each other, alternating between soft and harsh and desperate, so desperate like all the stars would burn out if they weren’t right there together.

When she looked back at him his pupils were blown wide.

“Not here,” he hissed between clenched teeth.Through the fog of her mind, some part of her understood.She might have been past caring who might happen upon them in the hull, but he wouldn’t chance anyone intruding. Not now, not on this.

“Okay,” she agreed.

His hand darted out, closing around her wrist while her fingers crackled.They stumbled into the lift and he dropped his hand.They waited, shoulders touching, facing ahead, unable to even say a word that might derail them.

Had the lift always taken so long?She glanced over at him and saw the clench and release of his jaw, the only visible evidence he was anything but calm.

She couldn’t resist.“Control it,” she teased.

Yon-Rogg looked at her fully, eyes blazing, the curl of his lips almost feral.“What do you think I’ve been doing for years?”

Finally the lift halted and then she dragged him behind her, pulling him towards her door and locking them inside.Everything shifted into focus.Him.Her.And everything raced and became a frantic grappling to pull at clothes.The universe collapsed into the confines of her room and wet and heat and electricity.She felt like she was flying, like she could see the years racing by like the stars with the sparks dancing all around.But it seemed _more_ because he was right there with her and they weren’t fighting against each other but charging together in the same direction.

When it ended it was over too fast.But it’s not over, she thought.It was just beginning.His fingers carded through her hair and she leaned against his shoulder looking up through her lashes.

“You love me,” she observed.

“Of course.”Like it was the most obvious thing in the universe.

“I love you too.”

There was nothing more to say.

**Author's Note:**

> Confessions:  
> 1\. I did not expect to finish this series so quickly. It’s really rare that an idea crystallizes so quickly but this was pretty serendipitous. Maybe it should have been a single story, but I liked it split into three. Unless something truly insane happens, this is it for the series. It was always going to end here. From the very minute I realized my Disney+ subscription allowed access to deleted scenes and I saw the Yon-Rogg SI deleted scene this whole thing was roughly formed in my head and always ended like this.  
> 2\. I’m not saying I’ll never write again but I’m also not sure I’ll have anything either so... basically I’m not committing to anything and I’m going to go work on my ‘marked for later’ reading list.  
> 3\. Thank you for reading and being an encouragement. Y’all have been so supportive and seriously have been amazing. I feel so fortunate to have stumbled into this fandom with such great writers and such encouraging members. It’s very much challenged me to get out of my comfort zone and comment more myself.


End file.
